From 1999 to 2004, there was a small child without a voice. Every morning she would wake up, eat breakfast and then start her day at St. Andrew’s Catholic School. Parents would wait in a line of cars until they dropped their child off, assuming that their child was going into a school to be educated, nurtured, and to grow. Assumptions are not the truth.
Every day that child would go to class, starting the day with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, moving on to academics for a few hours, just as the parents expected. Eventually the children would be dismissed for a lunch break to feed their growing bodies.
During lunch, the child knew better than to talk to loud, get out of line, or get out of her chair before dismissed. If she were to upset a teacher in anyway, she would get sent to Siberia, and she knew better than to let that happen. Siberia, or the lunchtime punishment room, was a dark storage closet that was quite cold with a separate table to sit at. Though, there was no point in having a table to sit at, as the child would have their lunch taken away from them before they went. If a child was misbehaving during regular class time, they would often get a punishment of up to a week in Siberia.
After lunch, and other times of the day the students would be sent to recess. Recess is usually the best part of the day for typical students, but for this student it could also be the worst. If students were misbehaving in class, they would have to sit during recess with their nose touching the wall on top of sewage grates the entire time. Often times, students who were in time-out would be hit with balls and other objects flying around. This child was taught that this, and Siberia, as being normal behavior. Just as children in all schools are taught to line up, stay quiet, and go to class, this child learned that corporal punishment was a normal part of school.
The child was bit, hit and bullied by other students. This was normal behavior in an elementary school. Children are prone to roughhouse with each other, but in a normal school, the behavior would be stopped immediately. One day, this 9 year old child was stabbed with a coat hanger in front of her fourth grade teacher. The teacher denied it ever happening. After showing her parents the scars, and having the principal contacted, the child was sat down for a conference with the principal in the library. The child who used the coat hanger was good friends with the principal’s son. The child who was hurt was told she could not leave until she repeated, “he never hit me, and I made that up”. The principal could never hurt her son’s friend. The child then was told to say it while a cassette tape recorded her every word. Her every lie. That tape hid her truth and forever shielded her true voice from the world. She was told that what happened was her fault, and she cannot let that happen again.
Today, that child is a grown adult. An almost-21 year old who has one year left as an economics major. That child has a voice now, and completely understands what happened. That child is writing this letter. That child is me.
I don’t blame my parents. They assumed that they were doing the best for me, giving me some superb education that could not be obtained anywhere else. I don’t blame the other kid. Kids are kids, and naturally get angry and at a young age do not know when too much roughhousing is too much. I blame the teacher. The principal. The administration. It was not that child’s job to know that hitting is wrong, but it sure was the teacher’s job to teach him that. It was the principal’s job to discipline him in a humane way; perhaps a detention or a call home. If his parents were aware that he was hurting other students, they probably would have talked to him about it. At this school however, the teachers were only concerned about disciplining students when it was convenient for them, and in corporal ways.
Today I am forever timid, shy and easily walked over by others. I still have problems saying no, and blame myself for things that absolutely were not my fault. I grew up with the mentality that any abuse or wrongdoing someone receives is ultimately somehow the cause of their own actions. I am still working on accepting the fact that some people just fall into bad circumstances and abuse is never one’s own fault.
I urge parents to send their children to public schools. Public schools sometimes have a bad reputation, but they are actually ran by standards set by the government of each state. Each teacher and administrator at public schools is required to have at least a bachelor’s degree and an education license. If a public school teacher somehow does wrong upon their students, and breaks the rules of the extremely high standards, they will have their education license revoked. The teachers at this private school were not even required to have a bachelor’s degree, much less an education license. There was no authority overseeing this school besides its own administration.
Please parents. Do not join the elitist bandwagon of being a “private school family”. Please send your child to a safe and monitored public school. I cannot change what happened, nor do I want to fix my own past. My childhood is what made me who I am today. What I do want to do, however, is fix someone else’s future. I want to save any 3 or 4 year old child whose parents might be reading this from having to start their life at a private school.
Of course, not all private schools are like this. Probably not even half of all private schools are this extreme. However, it is best to not take chances with your child’s safety.
Be wise. Be safe. Choose public schools.
